The Federal Government has released Australia’s first-ever National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is affecting Australian communities.
Climate impacts are already disrupting Australian lives in many ways, and threaten everything we care about.
The following spokespeople from farming and agriculture, community resilience, marine conservation and healthcare are available for interview and can speak to their lived experience of the worsening impacts of climate change.
To arrange interviews, please contact:
Gabrielle Platt, 0493 442 307 or [email protected]
Jemimah Taylor, 0478 924 425 or [email protected]
Victoria:
Natalie Collard, CEO of Farmers for Climate Action
As CEO of Farmers for Climate Action Natalie can speak to the impact of climate change on Australian farmers and the need to set a strong 2035 climate target to protect farming forever. Natalie is an advocate for regional Australia, agriculture and renewable energy.
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
Bronwyn Gresham, CEO of Psychologists for a Safe Climate
Bronwyn is available to comment on the importance of prioritising emotional care as Australians turn towards difficult climate realities such as those outlined in the NCRA and how Australians can create psychological safety upon reading about the NCRA’s findings.
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
New South Wales:
Peter Lake, beef farmer
Peter Lake is a beef farmer, who can talk about the difficulty of coping with worsening climate impacts. Peter’s farm was badly flooded in 2022. A lot of his infrastructure, such as sheds, was not insured because it was too expensive.
Location: Clarence Valley, Northern Rivers NSW
Sophie Nichols, grazier
Sophie is a fourth generation farmer on a cattle farm on the outskirts of Singleton who has spoken about how years of drought, a bushfire and flooding rains left her family's farm with significant debt, poor groundcover, and substantial erosion. In response, Sophie decided they needed to change farming practices and be innovative, installing solar power and batteries to power her farm and reduce energy bills and using sustainable farming techniques.
Location: Singleton, NSW
Elly Bird, Executive Director of Resilient Lismore
Elly is a former Lismore City Councillor. Under her leadership, Resilient Lismore has supported the repair of over 700 homes; advocated for flood-affected residents navigating the complex recovery system and led the development of the Northern Rivers Community Resilience Alliance. Elly is a nationally respected voice for community resilience, climate justice, and inclusive disaster recovery that centres community needs and develops community capacity and expertise.
Location: Lismore, NSW
Chay Khamstone, mother and volunteer firefighter
Chay has experienced back-to-back climate fuelled disasters - including the 2019 Black Summer bushfires and the 2021 flooding disaster, both of which heavily impacted her community. As a mother, and local resilience group organiser, Chay can talk to the urgent need to ensure her community stays safe from further climate pollution harms.
Location: Pappinbarra, Mid-North Coast of NSW.
Karin Stark, Director at Farm Renewables Consulting and Founder of the National Renewables in Agriculture conference
Karin Stark can speak to the impact of droughts and floods and how renewables help farmers weather those storms, like farmers using income from hosting wind turbines to pay for feed during long droughts.
Location: Central West NSW
Queensland:
Dr Lissa Schindler, Great Barrier Reef Campaign Manager, Australian Marine Conservation Society
Lissa is a marine ecologist who has worked in marine conservation both in Australia and overseas. Lissa has a PhD in assessing the effectiveness of protected areas and has worked for the Queensland government in environmental policy and natural resource management. Lissa can speak to the NCRA’s findings on the Great Barrier Reef.
Location: Brisbane, Queensland
Western Australia:
Verity Morgan-Schmidt, CEO of AgZero
Verity is the CEO of AgZero and former CEO of Farmers for Climate Action. AgZero equips farmers and rural Western Australians to rise to the challenges of climate change and seize the opportunities of clean energy and climate solutions.
Location: Western Australia
Dale Park, beef farmer
Dale is a WA beef producer in Badgingarra, and former President of WA Farmers Federation. Dale is on the National Farmers Federation Environment Committee and is a Director of Farmers for Climate Action.
Location: Badgingarra, Western Australia
Simon Wallwark - Grain farmer
Simon is a farmer from the wheatbelt of WA, and has first hand experience of the pressures being placed on agricultural communities as temperatures continue to rise, and heatwaves and droughts become more frequent and intense.
Location: near Corrigon, Western Australia
ACT:
Sam Beaver, Policy lead and campaigner at Protect Our Winters
Sam can speak to what this report might mean for the Alpine regions of Australia and the work Protect Our Winters is doing to help protect the future of the Australian snow season by reducing climate pollution, and importantly, helping communities adapt to changes that are already occurring.
Location: Canberra.